I was raised with a mother who whispered things that were, at that time, not socially polite to say to others.  Always with a judgmental inflection to her voice. Kind of the precursor to being politically correct.  So do this with me, whisper (out loud) “She has cancer”; “He’s adopted”; “They’re divorced”.  I know you just did that, lol!  Well you had to in order to understand how ridiculous it is to whisper these things.

I can’t speak for men, but I think I can speak in general terms for women – there are things that we don’t even whisper to others, or if we do, it is only to our closest confidants. I was reminded of this today as I read a FB post from someone on my husbands wall.  She shared that my blog yesterday was good for her as she was recently unemployed, and that she was attempting to be positive about her life situation as well. For the most part, as women, we don’t share these kinds of things.  We don’t go out there and say – hey, I lost my job!  Why?  I am guessing it is because we think that others will view us as failures or damaged in some way.  And we work really hard at being successful in all that we do – for many women, failure is not in our vocabulary.

Losing our job and running into a friend in Wal-Mart … time to catch up – so what’s new – oh, I got “let go”… “terminated” … just say it “FIRED”.  How awkward!  For us and for them!  It is tempting to say nothing, to hope that the topic doesn’t come up – but in reality, it is going to come up and we need to find a way to incorporate this disturbance in our day to day with others without begging for sympathy.

How about this one – I had a miscarriage.  This one is so difficult to share.  I know – I have been there…. 30 years ago…. and if you think women don’t share this news now – we really didn’t share it then.  Again – an awkward conversation at best.  But once you share it – holy cow, everybody has been there!  It is like the a secret club…

Or – the police call and ask you if you know that your child is in their custody.  Yup, we want to shout that from the rooftops. Or that your child has dropped out of school to find their way. Maybe your marriage has hit a really rough patch, you are not even speaking to your spouse. The list goes on….

Here is the really sad part of this kind of thing, of keeping the smile plastered on our faces, of being secret keepers … we will never know what other women have to offer us in the way of support, advice, connections and love if we parade through our difficulties keeping them so close to the vest that no one ever knows what is happening.  Guess what – millions of women have gone through EXACTLY what you are facing right now – but it will take you longer to process whatever loss you are struggling with if you are PC and don’t share.  Because, here is something else I know about women, if you share – they will listen and share back with you.

One of the biggest struggles the church has today is that it is supposed to be a place where broken people gather to be touched in ways that allows them to heal from the attacks of the world.  Unfortunately, and I have seen it over and over again, going to church means slapping that smile on our face and in my husband’s words, putting lipstick on the pig, so we look like we are living the right Christian life.  When in fact, we need to be so transparent with our God family in order to have any hope of really healing.  We usually take it a step further (and this step I was never able to do being the Pastor’s wife – it would have been frowned upon), we stop going to church until we either 1. get the “situation under control” or 2. the “situation”has blown over”.  Many times, neither one of those things happen – so we never return to church – someone might just find out that we were failures.  Sheesh folks – that is what the church is all about! Being a failure! How can the church and its people help each other if we don’t know or if you cut us out of the loop.

Are we really that different than my whispering mother?  I don’t think so. Do we need to find our voices and speak up about the realities in our past and current lives? Yes!  Not as martyrs, but as warriors with battle wounds and scars.  Let others hear what is joyful and hurtful to you – let others know what really contributes to your personhood. Let others IN….

All together now – no whispering allowed – what is your wound today?  Find someone to share it with and you will find that the burden, though still yours to bear and work through, will become lighter as others begin to know how they need to support you.
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